Swan Queen Week: Monday: Beards
by Joshua The Evil Guy
Summary: Post Season 3 episode 'Witch Hunt'. Emma and Regina are in a secret relationship, and they need some help to keep it that way. So they ask the only two men they can trust to help them out by pretending to be their boyfriends.


Title: Swan Queen Week: Monday: Fake Relationship

Author: Joshua

Disclaimer: ABC and Disney own Once Upon A Time and all associated characters. This story is in response to the challenge put forth by and for "Swan Queen Week" (), specifically the third bi-annual event, "Tropes & Cliches". Story contains descriptions and allusions to an 'Adult' relationship between two women. If this offends you, you always have the right to exercise your free will, and not read it. Rated: M (for themes, content, and language)

Summary: Post Season 3 episode 'Witch Hunt'. Emma and Regina are in a secret relationship, and they need some help to keep it that way. So they ask the only two men they can trust to help them out by pretending to be their boyfriends.

Beards:

"I need your help!"

"With what?"

"You won't like it, but understand I would not be here if I didn't _need_ your help."

"With _what_?"

"I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend."

SQW

The same conversation, repeated twice, at virtually the same time no less, to two different men, both being approached by women that they were attracted to and in their minds were 'courting', after a fashion. To find out the truth was… well, disappointing didn't begin to cover how they felt.

It all started the day after Emma returned to town and figured out that the latest witch on the block just so happened to be the Wicked Witch of the West, from the land of Oz. Hook was staying close to Emma, though whether for her protection or his, not even he could say. And Robin Hood began to make… overtures toward Regina after the loss of Little John and discovering a mutual dislike for the Evil Queen's long lost sister.

Killian Jones, Captain Hook, felt that he was in love with Emma Swan. It was as intense and all-consuming as what he'd felt for Mila, the ex-wife of Rumplestiltskin, his first true love. Or perhaps, be began to realize, neither love was 'true' in the first place.

Robin of Loxley, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, etc, felt an undeniable attraction to the woman known as Regina Mills. After the loss of his first wife, the Maid Marion, he feared that he could never love another like that ever again. Alas, he'd begun to suspect, that fear was perhaps the truth.

No one in the town knew or even suspected anything. Hell, the majority was quite fooled by the performance Emma and Regina gave at the town meeting shortly after the Savior had returned. Both men even suspected that not even the very-pregnant Snow White or her doting husband suspected anything. But for Hook and Hood, it was pretty obvious that there was… _something_ going on between the women they fancied.

Whatever it was, things came to a head the day Neal died. Neither man could say _what_ happened, but that something happened between the two strong independent women that night was obvious. To them at least. No one else in town seemed to pay much mind to it, more worried over the threat presented by the Wicked Witch of the West, aka Zelena.

How they knew exactly when this 'something' occurred came mostly from the fact that it was the very next day after said incident, before noon even, was when Emma came to Hook and Regina went to Robin Hood and asked them that rather startling question.

Both men, however, had very different reactions to their respective paramours, however. Hook, having pursued the lovely Swan across three different realms as a matter of fact, knew just how out of his league he was in even pursuing her and likewise knew and acknowledged that this was probably the best he was going to get anytime soon, and the pirate was all about 'immediate gratification' when it came to such things. Hood, on the other hand, was a romantic at heart, and a father who had lost his first wife in childbirth and was seeking a second chance as it were. And apparently there was something about him being Regina's second True Love, or destiny, or something.

"OK," Hook said to Emma, who nodded and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, before walking off, smiling and with a spring in her step.

"Why?" Hood asked Regina, arms crossed.

"Because I need your help!" she snapped. "And I thought that is what the heroes did; help people that need it!"

"Yes," he admitted, before asking, "But why do you need a 'boyfriend' in the first place? Why not have everyone continue to think that you are single and without a companion? Having been a participant in one, I am somewhat familiar with what a secret relationship looks like. So either this partner that you've chosen is a man that no one could possibly approve of you being with, or…" Robin paused and considered, looking at Regina in a whole new light as he concluded, "... Or this person is not a man at all."

Regina's full blush and refusal to meet his eyes for at least ten seconds was all the answer he required.

"You have my agreement," Robin Hood told her. "I'll be your, what is the term I heard spoken recently? Ah yes, your faux beau."

"Thank you."

SQW

The next day, after some details were hammered out with the men, showed quite a few changes in Storybrooke. The most startling of which wasn't even how Robin Hood now remained at Regina's side just like Hook remained at Emma's, or even how obvious it became that Emma and Regina were now on the same side, despite their little 'display' at the earlier town hall meeting. No, the most startling thing of all was actually the two women, Emma especially, telling everyone that would listen, that they were now dating their respective men.

"I'm sorry, you're what?" Snow blurted out. David was still too shocked to speak at the moment, judging from his open mouth and blank stare.

"I'm dating Hook," Emma told them. Again. For the fourth time.

"Why? How? Why? When? _Why_?" her very-pregnant same-age-as-her mother asked.

"Why does anybody date anyone?" she answered with a question.

"Why now, after all this time, is what I think your mother meant," David finally found his voice. Though he still looked and sounded a bit out of it.

Emma responded with the answer she'd repeatedly rehearsed—in the mirror—a hundred times over the past few days. She and Regina had 'tested' each other before leaving… er, before leaving for the day, and the Queen had pronounced her "Adequate, certainly acceptable. It should fool your parents and all their friends, provided you can pull it off when you're under the gun." Emma took that to mean that she'd lied so good that she'd almost convinced her… friend, yeah, friend of what she was about to say to her parents. Good thing Henry wasn't anywhere nearby. He would probably be the only one to see right through her veiled attempt at deception.

"Hook, he…" she trailed off at a precise and calculated measure, looking over at the clock on the wall, while making it look to everyone else she was caught up in a memory. "He came back for me. He brought me back. And so yeah, when he kissed me—"

"Wait!" David interrupted. "Hook kissed you?!"

She shot him a glare and picked up where she'd left off. Thankfully, she had this more than memorized. "When he kissed me, I didn't get my memories back, so it wasn't True Love's Kiss, but not everyone gets to find their soulmate, guys! Maybe I will, someday, and maybe it is Hook. But we're not there yet. But I do appreciate all he's done for me, and while I will admit that I do feel _something_ for him, and I'd like to find out what that is, or what it could be."

"But Emma!" Snow tried, still somewhat dismayed. Oh, if only she knew the truth, she'd blow up, and not from the baby.

"He brought me back," she said again, looking at each of them in turn, her 'I'm-serious-about-this' look on her face. "He could have just ignored it, gone on with his life, he was already free of everything holding him to us, and he never sat comfortable with being a law-abiding citizen after who knows how many years as a pirate. But instead, at the first opportunity, he comes and gets me in New York City and risks _everything_ to bring me back here to you all. I thought that…" she thought about Henry lying on that hospital bed, poisoned from something meant for her "I—the last time, I thought I would never see you guys again. And—and while this past year with… with Henry," she just about lost it and started thinking of Regina, last night, instead "Ha ha ha! While this past year has been great, I can't deny that I've felt like _something_ was missing."

She couldn't stop smiling, so she took the chance to take a drink, hoping she could get it under control. It worked, a little. She wasn't widely grinning like a lust-filled loon, but the smile would just not go away completely.

"Looking back on it, I recognize that it was how I _used_ to feel. About life, about everything. Henry being there made things better, but I was… different. I was like I was before I came here, before I got to know everyone here and started to Believe. And Hook has brought me back, made me remember everything that I've learned and become since then. He deserves a little reward for that, don't you think?"

"Reward?" David snapped.

"Is that what he's thinking? That by doing a good deed and bringing you back, he gets rewarded by you… by you… by you…" Snow couldn't even finish the thought, and it was clear that she was starting to get stressed.

"By getting to date me?" Emma finished for her mother, and then answered the question. "No. Well, maybe. I don't actually know what he's thinking. But as for me, I'm not doing this out of some arbitrarily contrived sense of owing him or anything like that. I do feel something for Hook, and guess what people? This is how we do things in this world. We date other people and find out if we actually like them or not while getting to know them. We don't follow pixie dust around hoping to find a new true love or anything. We do the best we can with what we've got. And it's not like I'm going to go and marry the guy! Puh-lease! Even if I did like him, not that I'm saying that I do, or that I don't, but even if I did I would not get hitched to some guy I hardly know. Hence; dating."

"OK," Snow raised her hands in defeat and let out a long, slow sigh. "OK, fine. While we are your parents, you are a grown woman and you can—and have been—making your own decisions for quite a while now. We cannot tell you what to do, even if we think you're making a terrible mistake and this is somehow going to come back and bite you in some way!"

"Good," Emma nodded, smiling a bit more genuinely now, not having to fake it and she felt that the stupid-love-grin she'd had before from thinking about Regina was gone now. "I think that in that you are just like all the other parents in the world. Congratulations."

"So," David lead in, after a brief uncomfortable silence had settled, "when's your first date?"

"Does Henry know?" Snow asked at almost the same time.

"You are the first people I've told about it. After Hook, that is," she said. "As for first date, I'm thinking something spontaneous. And not at Granny's Diner, or the Rabbit Hole. First date is just going to be for us. I'll let you know when and where our second date will be, provided there is a second date. You can supervise that one."

"Fair enough," her father agreed, after mulling it over for a few seconds at least.

"David!" Snow exclaimed.

"You said it yourself, Snow," he said, "Emma is her own woman and can make her own decisions. At least we can say that we already know her boyfriend. Let them have their first date, get to know each other, like we did. Then we can start pestering and embarrassing them like parents are supposed to."

Sighing heavily, her mother nodded her head and leaned in against her husband. "You're right. It's just…"

"I know," he whispered back.

Not wanting to witness yet another True Love moment between her parents of all people, Emma quickly tuned them out and started thinking of what to do next. Such as… her first date, not with Hook but with… hm. Come to think of it, she had better start thinking of her "first date with Hook", and maybe of Regina's "first date with Robin Hood" while she was at it. If they left it up to the guys, they'd each be Casanova Playboys that hit a homerun on the first swing, so to speak, after taking them on some caricature of every romance novel ever written.

She wondered how things were going with Regina's and Robin's 'big reveal'. In an oddly perpendicular parallel, as Hook was the 'bad boy' and didn't really have anyone to "share" his news about dating Emma Swan with, Regina was the 'bad girl' that nobody really cared _who_ she dated, just so long as she wasn't throwing fireballs at them or anything. No, it was Robin Hood who had 'people' to "share" his news with. Specifically, his Merry Men, and all their friends and family. And Grumpy.

Regina really had that dwarf pegged. He was a worse gossip than TMZ.

Still, she hoped that everything was going well. The last thing that they needed at this point was for someone to pop bubbles in their stories and find out the truth.

SQW

"My Merry Men," Robin began, "I know each and every one of you. And each and every one of you know me. I would never lie to you. This you know. So it is with great pleasure and—"

"Why do you even mention the lying thing?" Regina interrupted for the fifth time. Fortunately, she was his only audience at the moment, but they were in the 'final rehearsal' as it were, so it was close to crunch time. "You practically put the idea in their heads right there! And you're still doing the thing!"

"What thing?" he asked, throwing his arms up in frustration.

"That… sneering thing," she described. "Always right when you get to the part where you're actually lying about being happy about moving on. I'm beginning to think we should take that part out."

"Thank you!" he exclaimed. "My men don't care about things like that. Mostly they care about the fact that I'll still be there to lead them and that we'll still be a brotherhood. They didn't care about Marion, they won't care about you."

"Something tells me, they might," Regina sighed.

"That is not what I meant," he grumbled, running his fingers through his hair. "You'd think I would be better at this sort of thing, especially after all the… trouble I went through with Marion!"

"Oh? What sort of trouble?" she asked, in spite of herself.

He smiled at the thought of his wife, dead wife, and remarked, "First time I met her, I was stealing from her carriage. She actually had one of my men at knifepoint. When we first began… courting, as I like to think of it, she refused to leave her life as a noblewoman. Not for the likes of me. So I had to sneak into the castle, repeatedly, and eventually I started sneaking her out. As much trouble as you gave Snow White and her Prince Charming, it was nothing compared to the trouble the Sheriff of Nottingham gave me and Marion."

"I find that difficult to believe," Regina said, with equal parts pride and shame.

"Perhaps," he admitted. "My point is though, that after a while, I started bringing Marion with me to the forest, and the Men got to know her. At first, they didn't approve, thinking that I was lovestruck and was taking unnecessary risks, putting them all in danger. And then they got to know her and they grew to care for her, until eventually she became part of our family."

"Is that what they'll expect to happen here?" she asked.

"No, maybe, at least I don't think so," he guessed. "Some of the men may think that you're trying to replace her. Others, such as Friar Tuck, will see this as me finally moving on. Whether they think that is a good thing or not, only time will tell."

"Please don't take this the wrong way, but I truly hope that they see this more as the latter than the former. This… arrangement, it is not permanent, Robin. It is just until we deal with this… Wicked Witch and get Henry his memories back. You understand, that is why we are going through with this whole charade. Not for our own sakes, but for Henry's. How your men feel about us dating is… merely a consequence that we will deal with in time."

Robin of Loxley, disgraced noble, outlaw, thief, and widower father stared across the short distance between him and Regina Mills, Evil Queen, Mayor of Storybrooke, sorceress, and adopted mother to a boy that no longer remembers her. The similarities and differences between them were striking, enough so that he could very easily see the two of them actually being together. Rather than faking it as they were now.

Nevertheless, he could see that something… vital had occurred between the Savior and the Queen. And whatever that something was, he would not interfere with it. Such things were rare enough as it is. Rare enough that he dare say it was worth protecting, even by someone like him. Especially by someone like him.

"Well, there is only one way to find out," he stated, going and pulling her to her feet. "My Men have already gotten used to seeing you in our camp, from your previous visits. At some point though, we will need to being courting. Publicly. Have you considered how to handle that?"

"I have a few ideas," Regina said as she brushed herself off and they began to march through the woods toward the area Robin Hood and his Merry Men had made their camp.

"Care to discuss them with me?" he prompted.

"There is… someone else that I need to discuss them with first," was her only reply.

"That is fair," he declared. They spent the remainder of their trek in silence, until they came upon the encampment. It was show time.

SQW

That night, Emma and Regina met in their secret place. Also known as Regina's bedroom in her mansion home. Henry was at the Bed&Breakfast, with Granny and Red on one side of his room and Grumpy and the remaining Dwarves in the others, as guards. Nobody knew where Emma went at night, and some (her parents) didn't even know that she left at all. Yet as bad and stressful as sneaking around like this was, neither woman could deny feeling a little bit of a thrill from the entire situation.

They'd been silent from the first moment Regina had let Emma into her home and then lead her up the stairs and down the hall to this room, where the door was immediately shut and locked, the windows already covered and lights left off. Emma began by taking off her red jacket and hanging it off the back of the doorknob. While she started taking off her shoes, Regina went over to her boudoir and started removing her makeup, something that the blond had never really bothered with unless a case required it.

Breaking the silence, feeling that some things needed to be… aired out before things progressed any further, she said to the dark-haired woman, currently removing her heels and hosiery, "So, I think we need to talk. About… first dates."

"Oh?" she remarked, pausing in her current actions.

Emma looked over at her and barely managed to swallow the gulp that had lodged in her throat. Regina stood on one foot, the other placed on the edge of her boudoir, and she had one stocking only about a quarter of the way off, with both hands on her thigh to properly grip the garment. It had her gorgeous legs on full display and made her look like a model out of a magazine. Seeing that she had quite effectively shut up the Sheriff, the Mayor decided to continue the conversation regardless. While still continuing to undress, of course.

"Are we talking about _our_ first date? Or… _our_ first _dates_?" she asked, finally getting the stocking all the way off and she switched legs to start on the second.

"Um, yes? No? All of the above? True? C? 42?" Emma floundered, staring wide-eyed and unblinking as the creamy skin of Regina's legs were revealed, inch by silky inch.

The reformed Evil Queen let loose with her signature throaty chuckle, something that just seemed to rev the squirming blond's motor even more. Rather than continue with this far-too-easy seduction, Regina held off on disrobing any further and walked barefoot back to the bed. Sitting down on the edge, she twisted to look at her… she didn't even know what Emma Swan was to her anymore. Lover? Partner? Former rival? Girlfriend? True Love?

It was all so complicated and new and undefined that it was somewhat dismaying to realize. But it was worth every second of it. She felt that in every fiber of her being.

"Focus, Emma," she said teasingly. "First dates?"

"Right, first dates," the blue-eyed blond repeated, entranced. Then she shook herself and put her brain in gear. "First dates. Yes, right. We need to talk about how we're going to pull this off. Just _saying_ that Hook and Hood are our boyfriends will only get us so far. People, my parents especially, are going to need to see us out in public. Being… very affectionate toward... each other. We need to, uh, discuss how much and exactly what is and isn't OK."

"Yes, we do," Regina agreed.

"Obviously, sleeping with them is out of the question," Emma stated.

"Yes, and how often do you 'sleep' with people in public, Miss Swan? If I may ask, that is," Regina teased her.

"Hypothetically," Emma shot the black-haired tease a warning look, "say Hook is seen leaving my room at the Bed&Breakfast, half-dressed, and then I leave the same room, still getting dressed. Obviously, you and I, and the boys, know that he and I did not have sex. But everybody else in town is going to think that regardless. So if you suddenly hear a rumor of me and him like that, what are you going to do?"

"What business is it of mine? As far as the rest of the town is concerned, that is," Regina answered, though Emma could easily see the muscles in her jaw were tight and her fists were unconsciously clenching at the covers.

"I don't know, but your reaction is going to be important, Regina," she said, reaching across to unclench the fist. They grasped one another's hands, fingers interlocking naturally. "As for me, from my perspective, if I suddenly heard a bunch of the Merry Men talking about you leaving Robin's tent and making jokes… well, in the spirit of honesty, I'd probably go and challenge the smarmy bastard to an archery contest."

"Can you even shoot a bow and arrow?" the calmed woman laughed.

"It doesn't look that hard, I think I can figure it out," the blond shrugged. "Besides, it's the thought that counts, right?"

"All right, let's be serious for a minute, shall we?" the brunette said once she'd gotten her laughter under control.

"OK fine," Emma sighed. "Jealousy issues aside, for the moment, we need to get our stories straight and also start planning a few 'public' dates so everyone can see us together and everything. And by us, I meant…"

"I know what you meant," Regina sighed, rubbing her forehead as the stress started her head to pounding, and her eyes to ache. Emma immediately crawled across to the other side of the bed and began to massage the woman's shoulders, and then her head and temples.

"Hey," she whispered, her lips against her black hair, "We'll figure this out. We decided, remember? To wait until Henry remembers. To hide things from everyone, especially this Wicked Witch, at least until we can protect ourselves from her. You say the word Regina, and I will march you in front of my parents and kiss you until they're blue in the face."

She smiled, enjoying the ministrations of her lover's gentle massage. Taking just a moment to bask in the relaxation and comfort of this, she ultimately resigned herself and started thinking of scenarios, counter-moves, retaliations and consequences. It was how she thought, how she planned, it was how she'd been so successful at being the Evil Queen and then the hardass bitch Mayor of Storybrooke. She planned for everything that she could and then she unleashed her machinations upon the world.

And then Emma Swan opened her mouth.

"Hey, I want to go on a date with you," she whispered, kissing her temple where her fingers had just been, now on her neck and shoulders.

"What?"

"Just one," she whispered back, between kisses. Her lips began making their way down to her neck, while her hands continued down her back. That the zipper of her dress came undone and was slowly being opened was just a consequence of the massage continuing. "And it doesn't have to be public. But I want to go on a date with you. Just you. Think, maybe, just maybe, that _our_ first date could be… our First Date?"

The capital letters could be heard without any extra emphasis being placed on them.

"What did you have in mind?" Regina asked, not dismissing it out of hand.

"Well," Emma found a serious knot right between the shoulder blades and began working it out, drawing delightfully sinful groans from the black-haired woman's throat, "I don't need to be wined and dined, and you've actually said that you prefer discretion to presentation, but the staples of a good date are food, entertainment, and talk. So… how about a picnic? At night, under the stars. This weekend, there's supposed to be a meteor shower. Supposedly, if we get to a high enough elevation and far enough away from the city lights, it should be a pretty good show. And we could get the boys to guard us."

"Guard us?" Regina moaned, feeling the knot finally come undone beneath Emma's… very talented fingers.

"Stay at the base of the hill, hang on to our respective cell phones, and make sure that nobody gets near us. We leave with them to 'go on our date' and then we come back with them after… well, after," Emma proposed, moving on, toying with the straps of the black lace bra.

"It sounds lovely," she breathed, loving the massage and what Emma was proposing all the same.

"But?" the blond inquired expectantly.

"But what will the men be doing while we're," Regina paused to look over her shoulder into her blue eyes, "watching the stars?" The double-meaning was not lost on Emma.

"I really could not care less," she whispered, her breath hitching slightly. "I'll bring some of Henry's video games. I'll show Hook how to play some of the Game Apps on my phone that require just one hand. They can watch their own damn stars. I just want to be there, with you. Please?"

"All right," Regina agreed. "And I suppose it could work out for both of us in the end. Neither of the groups of people we'll be telling really gossip about this sort of thing, so we'll just need to square away what we… them and us, talked about during the date."

"On the way home," Emma gasped as Regina's bra came loose in her hands.

"On the way home," she agreed, turning to kiss her private masseuse.

When they were finally forced to come up for breath, to to speak, the half-naked voluptuous dark haired woman said, "We really need to talk about this, make a plan, figure out what we're going to do… ah!" Emma had started suckling at her earlobe.

"Yeah," the blond said, pulling away from her lover, the woman whose Heart she had healed, "We really do." Then she sat up and pulled off her tanktop and the underwear beneath it in a single, smooth motion.

"Later," they both whispered together. And then everything became a blur of passion, motion, emotion, bodies and sweat.

_TBC..._

(AN: OK, this one, I'll probably write a couple more chapters on, when/if I have/get the time to do so. Also, the Mature rated scenes will be added after the Week is over with. Not for any particular reason, beyond time constraints that is. Also, please feel free to pester me with questions, ideas and suggestions as to exactly how this particular cliche-story can or should develop. And not just 'when is the next chapter coming out?', but actually helpful questions and criticisms, like 'what are they going to actually do on their First Date' and other stuff like that. Thanks, and Enjoy!)


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